Part 5 of 'Kinder, Kindler, Kindlier' (Snape/Harry/Draco)

[lomonaaeren]

Part Four.

Title: Kinder, Kindler, Kindlier (4/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Snape/Harry/Draco
Rating: R
Warnings: Threesome (there are Harry/Draco scenes). Slightly AU from DH in that Snape survives. Profanity, sex, angst.
Summary: The third law of motion does not apply to relationships.
Author’s Notes: This started life as a tiny one-shot, but didn’t stay there. It will probably end up being posted in seven or eight parts, perhaps a bit more or a bit less.

Part One.

Draco had had a thought.

It had first been sparked when he came to the top of the stairs on the day he had had lunch at the Manor and found Potter stepping out of Severus’s rooms, smiling at him. Potter had shaken his head and said, “Afraid that we ran away for an afternoon of sweaty sex? Sorry. It was tuna fish sandwiches.”

Draco had laughed, partially in surprise that Potter would make a joke, even such a poor one, and partially because there was no other response to a statement that ridiculous.

But he watched the way that Potter watched Severus, how his eyes focused so often on the man’s hands, even when Severus was doing something as ordinary as setting up displays of beetle eyes. It was the first time Draco had ever seen anyone look jealous of Potions ingredients.

Potter became still when Severus glanced in his direction. Never for very long, perhaps not long enough for even Severus to notice, but he did so, as if he needed to think about what he would do with that dark gaze on him.

Potter would take a deep breath when he came in each morning and found Severus in the shop, as if his dreams were filled with images of what might happen should Severus grow disgusted with the way he was treated in Britain and simply leave.

Once Draco looked, he found more sparks everywhere, and he thought that he might know what had compelled those particular words to spring to Potter’s lips.

He would perhaps have simply played with the thoughts, lighting them and watching them fall, if not for something else. They were so strange, and Severus seemed so unlikely to ever give Potter what he wanted, that there was nothing to do but play.

Then came the morning he arrived late at the shop, because his mother had delayed him to make a passionate speech about grandchildren and how necessary they were, and Potter rushed towards him, face white. Draco automatically picked up his wand and glanced over his shoulder. It was the way he would have expected Potter to look if there was an attack on the shop.

“Are you all right?” Potter demanded.

Draco stared at him. “Of course,” he said, when he could swallow in the face of Potter’s eyes. They were filled with lightning. The only other time Draco had seen them look like that was on the afternoon that Potter defeated the Dark Lord. “My mother lectured me, that’s all.” He paused, and perhaps the spirit of Hogwarts wasn’t dead in him after all, because he had to add, “Worried, Potter?”

“With the threats that are already starting to come in?” Potter flung back his head and exhaled like a horse that had found its manger unexpectedly full of hay, closing his eyes. Draco watched the way his throat worked in fascination. “Of course I was. I didn’t know if perhaps you’d been ambushed, and the last time I would see you was if someone sent your head to us.” His fingers shook where they gripped his wand.

“Don’t you have a gruesome imagination,” Draco said lightly. His emotions spun and pivoted within him, and he couldn’t resist a test to see if he was right. He reached out and put a hand on Potter’s sleeve. “I’m fine.”

It worked. Potter fixed his attention on Draco’s hand, his breath catching. Like I’m a wild and rare animal that he doesn’t want to frighten away, Draco thought, and moved his fingers in a small caress across Potter’s sleeve before dropping his hand.

Potter blinked, shuddered as if the caress had delayed impact, and then looked up at him. “I was worried, that was all,” he whispered.

Draco nodded in response and then strode over to do his own work, which was almost finished. In truth, Potter only needed to make the new side of the shop a bit prettier than he had managed so far, and Severus needed to arrange the displays in a way that would satisfy him instead of make him grumble, and they would be ready to open.

A fortnight ago, Draco had imagined that his proudest moment would be learning to tolerate Potter in the close confines of both a building and a business.

Now he looked sideways at Potter and entertained different thoughts, half of them incoherent and half of them too full of light.

But interesting, nonetheless.

*

Harry sighed and leaned his head back against the chair. Dinner at the Burrow was an exhausting event. Harry always felt compelled to at least try everything that was set in front of him, or Molly would be disappointed, and it didn’t help that Ron had as big an appetite as ever and would involve Harry in eating contests.

“Are you sure that you wouldn’t like more cake, dear?” Molly held out a plate that was entirely covered by a slice of white cake with red icing. Just looking at it made Harry’s stomach heave.

“How can you ask that, Mum?” Ginny sounded half-amused, half-appalled. “Just look at his face. The cake would come up again as soon as it went down.”

“Did you have to say that, Gin?” Ron stood up from the table and staggered carefully in the direction of the bathroom. Hermione shook her head as she watched him go, but her face was soft, her eyes fond. Harry smiled at the side of her head. He was glad that they had found each other, and even his one regret about that—that being around them made any relationship he tried seem superficial—was long since cured. Ron and Hermione couldn’t help how much they loved each other.

Her eye perhaps caught by the shake of his head, Hermione oriented on him, and immediately adopted an expression that was almost pure predator. “How did you get along with Irene, Harry?”

Harry glanced down and took the chance to stir his finger through the crumbs along the edge of his plate a few times before replying. He was trying to come up with a diplomatic answer, but Hermione evidently saw straight through that and sighed.

“I wish I could find someone whose company you would enjoy, Harry,” she whispered.

“It’s hard replacing someone like Ginny,” Harry said, tilting his head at Ginny. She was in a conversation with her mum, but she heard him and smiled thanks over her shoulder.

“Yes,” Hermione said, with the insistent tone that meant she would bring this up for the rest of the evening if he didn’t answer her now, “but it’s been three years, Harry. That’s enough time to move on and find someone else.”

“If all I wanted was someone, I’d agree with you,” Harry said, facing Hermione and reluctantly pushing his plate out of the way. Molly would put “just a little taste” of something on it if he didn’t. “But I need a person who’s not afraid of my fame or my past and respects me for who I am, not just the scar.”

“Of course,” Hermione said. “Irene’s like that.”

Harry shook his head. “She’s nice, Hermione. And with you I’m sure she’s fine. But she spent the whole evening gaping at my scar, and she didn’t even notice when her food arrived. I had to say her name twice.”

“Oh, dear.” Hermione leaned back in her chair, dismayed—but only for one moment. In the next one, she had tilted her head and had the look in her eyes of a hawk about to pounce. “I’ve heard that Susan’s single again.”

Harry smiled temperately. His date with Susan Bones three years ago, soon after he’d broken up with Ginny, had been one of the more pleasant ones he’d been on. But Susan was looking for immediate marriage, and had taken up with one of the students who’d left Hogwarts right behind them less than a month after her date with Harry. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Hermione folded her arms and gave him a steady, disapproving glance. “You need someone in your life, Harry.”

“It’s not as though I’m a hermit,” Harry said, with a wave of his arm that took the entire Burrow in.

“Nearly as good as.” Hermione rapped her fingers against the table as though she were playing a drumbeat. Harry was afraid the drumbeat was the opening sound in a charge to take his comfortable life away from him and give him another one, whether or not he wanted that. “You hardly see anyone except your customers. And this thing with Malfoy and Snape doesn’t make any sense.”

Harry rolled his eyes. He loved Hermione, but she was getting on his nerves, which made him more blunt than usual. “You mean you didn’t predict it. You always think that things like that don’t make sense.”

Hermione sat straight up in her chair, offended, but Ron had come back from the bathroom, and he dropped a kiss on her cheek and a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t,” he said placidly. “If Harry wants to date or get married or find someone, then he’ll do it eventually, and I’m sure that we’ll be the first to hear the happy news.” He sat down on the other side of the table looking as satisfied as though he had solved all the world’s problems.

Hermione deflated and sighed loudly enough that she could have filled all Britain’s hot air needs for the next century. As Harry smiled at Ron in thanks, she said, “I know. But I’m just worried, Harry. I always thought you would be married by this point and have children. You always wanted children.”

Harry bit back another comment about how Hermione was only worried because he was doing something that was different from her predictions and did his best to smile and shake his head. “Sometimes what you want changes,” he said. “And I’m not the same person I was in Hogwarts. Children would be nice, but I’m not going to hurry into marriage just to have them.”

He caught Ginny watching him wisely out of the corner of her eye. Harry nodded to her. She knew what he was talking about better than any of them. They nearly had got married too soon to satisfy other people and their own craving for a family. Luckily, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had insisted that they wait until Ginny was at least out of Hogwarts, and those few months had made Harry realize that it would have been a mistake.

He and Ginny would have suited each other. But Harry wanted more than suitability. He wanted passion. He wanted a challenge. He wanted someone who wasn’t exactly like him, but similar enough that he could have lots of brilliant rows and then reconciliation afterwards. Hermione had at least taken enough notice of that that she was no longer trying to set him up with people who had been Gryffindors.

He wanted—

A clear picture formed in his mind, and he shut his mouth and swallowed loudly. Ginny gave him a curious look, and Hermione sat up as though she thought he was about to make a life-changing announcement.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, when Harry kept silent.

“Why should anything be the matter?” Harry asked. At least, he thought he asked that. He was sitting with his head bowed, his fingers pressed against his temples. His mind was filled with a relentless buzzing that at once made his thoughts feel clearer and kept him from focusing on much else.

“I know that look.” Hermione leaned forwards. “I know you. You realized something. What was it?” She was practically begging by the end of the sentence. Harry managed to snort in spite of everything else. Hermione couldn’t stand for knowledge to be in someone else’s hands and not her own, even for one minute.

Ron put a hand on Hermione’s shoulder and rubbed gently. “Leave him alone, Hermione,” he said again. “I think this is something he needs to absorb on his own.”

Harry nodded gratefully to his best friend and made his excuses to get out of the Burrow and away from everyone as soon as he could—and not just because Hermione was looking as though she would set ambushes for him in the corridors until he told her what she wanted to know. He really needed cool air and the sight of the stars overhead and room to think.

He wanted someone like Draco and Snape. Or Draco or Snape. The thought had come to him so suddenly, but it felt familiar and right. Maybe the idea had been hanging around his head for years, maybe he’d always known what he wanted, but it hadn’t come clear until he knew the proper people to give it a shape.

Harry felt his breath coming short, the way it had when he first had the revelation, and he sighed and shook his head. That was ridiculous. It wasn’t as though Draco and Snape were suddenly going to sit up in their beds, shiver all over, and know that he wanted them.

Or someone like them, he stubbornly confirmed to himself. They were probably inspirations, role models, for his idea. Not the real thing.

How in the world can they be the real thing?

Harry thought of the way that Snape still nodded to him coolly in the mornings, how they had never had a single civil conversation except the one the other day that had ended so strangely. Harry’s revelation that he would give up his fame so Snape could do something with it evidently didn’t impress Snape.

And why should it? Harry ran a hand through his hair and paced in a circle, glad that the Burrow was at a distance from the other houses in Ottery St. Catchpole and no one was likely to come up and see the Savior acting crazy. I did so little for him in the past, and even what I’ve done since then is just making up for the poor treatment that he’s received from other people. There’s no reason for him to be grateful.

He did say thank you.

But Harry snorted bitterly. That was a gesture of gratitude at the most. Not an overture of love.

His situation with Malfoy was even more hopeless. They were getting along now, but that was a long way away from love. Harry could just imagine what would happen if he mentioned anything about dating in front of Malfoy. His nostrils would flare, his eyes would widen, and he would edge slowly away from Harry, being careful not to taunt or otherwise anger the wild Gryffindor.

They have to be inspirations, because there’s no way I can be with them, and fighting for one hopeless cause in a lifetime is enough.

Harry paused as he realized there was something else that didn’t make sense. Snape and Draco were different people. But Harry’s feelings didn’t seem to distinguish between them.

I want them both. Or I want them equally.

Harry made a disgusted noise and dropped his head into his hands. Wasn’t that a sign that he didn’t really want them, he just wanted someone like them? Snape and Draco were real people. They didn’t deserve to be treated like—like interchangeable sex objects. Harry was imagining what they could be or what he wanted them to be, he was piling impossible demands on them in his mind, and he couldn’t even have the courtesy to think that they would react differently and demand different kinds of love.

At least I know what I want now, Harry told himself firmly, to relieve the hopelessness that seemed to trickle out from his heart and flow along his limbs like clinging mud. That has to be worth something. And I can find someone who fits that picture better than they ever could, and who’s interested in me to boot.

Harry Apparated back to his flat, and set about trying to imagine ways that he could meet someone who would give him what he wanted.

He spent more time banishing pictures of what Snape and Draco probably looked like when they were aroused, but at least the exercise gave him a few names by the time he went to bed.

*

A change had taken place in the last few days. Severus could sense it.

That worried him.

He did not know, and could not tell, what it was.

That annoyed him.

The work went on as normal. Potter was adding the finishing touches to his part of the shop. Draco had begun to take out advertisements in the Prophet, the Quibbler, and any other paper that would not refuse to accept Malfoy money. Almost all of them took the advertisements despite a scornful tone to the acceptance letters, as Severus had known would happen. The human principle of greed and their love of goods no matter how produced was one reason he had managed to make a living in the last few years.

Draco did not mess up his potions. That was not the problem.

Potter’s magic seemed as strong as ever, their wards a gleaming array of layered defenses that Dumbledore might have had trouble getting through. That was not the problem.

The displays at last marched around the front room of the shop in neat ranks, and Severus did not think he would have to rearrange the shelves again, no matter what last-minute crates his suppliers sent. That was not the problem.

What is?

He moved throughout the shop as silently as the Bloody Baron had once patrolled the dungeons, checking on Potter’s work and Draco’s. Draco gave him a dazzling smile and promptly began to brew with more zeal than before. There were some students Severus’s presence had always been able to inspire.

Potter tensed his jaw and continued working without any faltering, but with a heavier grip on his wand. Severus paused, head cocked, and wondered if it was only the ghost of the professor he had once been that urged him to consider the source of the problem as here.

He watched, but Potter never looked around or slowed his movements. The wards were lining up along the inside of the windows now, defending the building from an attack by admitted customers as well as random strangers. Severus had to admire the defensive thinking.

Of course, Defense Against the Dark Arts had always been Potter’s best subject.

What was he poor at? Severus asked himself as he prowled in a slow circle around the young man. Potter’s face was flushed now, and he refused to look up, a smattering of sweat on his cheeks. Of course, this was intense magic, but Severus was inclined to think it was more than that. What will make him crack and speak?

“Will you go away, please?” Potter sounded as if it were an effort to make the words that polite. He was glaring ferociously at the ward in front of him now, which shone blue and gold, and hunched his shoulders against Severus’s inquisitive stare. The motion which he used to slice off the end of the ward was vicious.

“Why?” Severus asked quietly. He would not attempt to justify himself, because it would be too easy to get into a shouting match with Potter, and that would dissipate his discomfort by moving him back to familiar ground. Severus did not know what the change was, not yet, but it had something to do with Potter’s discomfort, and that meant that discomfort should be allowed to remain until Severus had figured out how to account for it.

“Because you’re making me nervous?” Potter glared at him from behind tilted glasses that had almost slipped off his nose. “And I won’t construct good wards if I’m nervous.”

“Do I make you nervous, too?” Draco’s voice asked from the doorway that divided Harry’s section of the shop from theirs.

Severus gave him a glance of approval. Draco lounged against the doorway, eyes distant, face aloof, but he could not fool someone who had known him for so long. Draco, too, had sensed the strange difference and had come in to speak about it.

“When you’re hovering around me like this.” Potter hunched his shoulders again and glared out at them like a turtle who knew that Severus wanted to harvest its shell. “My customers usually have the good sense not to do that.”

“Does working in the same place with us make you nervous, then?” Draco’s voice was light and surprised. “I had thought you were more adult than that. Do excuse me, Potter. I won’t make that mistake again.”

Potter snarled under his breath and took his glasses off completely to wipe his face. Severus had to look more closely at Potter’s dirty, work-stained hands. Otherwise, he would make a fool of himself by staring at those green eyes that he had not known were so bright.

“Leave me alone, please,” Potter said, with an irritable toss of his head. “You can be in the same building, but not right around me.” He gave Severus a pointed glare, and this time Severus looked up unwarily and caught the full force of green.

Draco tilted his head, and Severus became aware that he might be staring. He cleared his throat and said, still harshly, “Are you sure that you have created that last ward aright, if my presence so bothers you?”

“Damn it, I don’t know,” Potter muttered, and turned back to the ward. He examined it, then sighed. “No. Go away, please.” He gestured with his wand, and the ward unwove and dropped into a coil of light at his feet, an effect Severus had never seen before.

Severus did not move. He was too close to the source of the secret, and Potter’s discomfort, now. It was as impossible to step away from this as it would have been to give up a secret he had pursued during his years as a spy.

Draco moved in from the other side, and Potter’s sharp twitch showed that he was aware of it. Still, he concentrated on the ward, and from the way it glittered and spun, Severus doubted that their presence was really adversely affecting Potter’s concentration.

When the ward finished, but before Potter could turn around, Draco reached out and laid his fingertips in the middle of Potter’s back.

Potter jumped like a spooked cat and spun about. Severus had time to give Draco a glance he would understand: Is this worth the risk?

Trust me, Draco’s tilted head said, and Severus silently agreed to do so, then faced Potter again to watch the show.

“What—what—” Potter seemed to strive to catch his breath. He adjusted his glasses again, then stabbed an accusing finger at Malfoy. “You’re a menace. What if you had done that when I was in the middle of creating the ward?”

“But I didn’t,” Draco said, with that little-boy innocence that Severus knew had fooled more than one professor who should have known better. “I waited until you were done. Now, are you going to tell me why such a small touch discommoded you so much?”

“Only you would use a word like discommoded,” Potter muttered, and took off his glasses to wipe them.

“I would be interested in the answer to Draco’s question,” Severus said, and Potter looked at him in frustration. Severus lifted an eyebrow. “If you are that jumpy, it might affect several of the more delicate potions as they are brewed.”

“I’m just not used to people touching me,” Potter said, in too loud a voice, and then tried to recover himself with a shake of his head and a silly smile. “I mean, my fans always try to get too close, and I haven’t dated regularly in a while, and my friends tend not to do that kind of thing, you know?”

“So that means that you object to this, then,” Draco said, before Severus could consider what to say in response to that ramble, and reached out to lay his hand on Potter’s shoulder, moving it with exaggerated slowness so that Potter had every chance to see it coming.

Severus saw it. He knew it was there. Potter watched Draco’s hand with a sick longing, and his eyelids fluttered when it came to rest.

He thought he knew, then, what Potter’s problem might be. He simply did not know how to deal with it.

And then, a moment later, his perception of the problem changed, and he did not know how to deal with the vision that resulted. Potter had reacted nervously to Draco’s presence, but also to Severus’s own.

That meant—

The flutter of the eyes, the longing, might be not only for Draco but for him.

Severus knew what he thought on most subjects, having lived longer in mental years than most people around him had been alive in physical ones. He could give weary and cynical answers to most questions, or muster hopeful ones if that seemed more likely to please a customer. But this was not something he had ever considered, and so he could only stand and stare.

Potter seemed to realize he had betrayed himself. He pulled himself up and glanced between Draco and Severus as if he were trying to decide how fast they would throw him out.

“Look,” he said, when Draco only stared at him as if he enchanted and Severus held fast in his own dumb paralysis, “I don’t plan to ever press you on anything.” His voice was soft, but Severus didn’t know if that was because Potter was trying to placate them or because he was struggling with his own panic. “I know that you have your own lives, and I’m the one who insisted on a place in your business. You don’t have to pay any attention to this.” He brightened suddenly, and stood up straight, in a way that made him look, disturbingly, more attractive than he had done so far. “In fact, that’s the best solution, isn’t it? We all ignore this until it goes away.”

“I hope it never goes away,” Draco whispered, and moved closer to Potter. He gave Severus a look as he moved, and Severus suddenly had to confront another possibility that he would not have said existed if anyone had questioned him about it. (And someone would have had to question him about it. Severus would never have imagined this on his own).

“You would think that, wouldn’t you, Malfoy?” Potter glared at Draco, making it clear that, whatever attraction he felt, it had not softened his intolerance of insults—or, in this case, what he thought were insults. “You enjoy laughing at me, and I bet it makes your day that—”

“That someone I could easily desire desires me?” Draco asked, and his voice had the kind of smothering softness that made Potter pause and stare at him with his mouth open. “Hmmm, yes, it does indeed.”

He leaned forwards while Potter was still gaping and put his mouth against Potter’s in what Severus recognized as a light, testing kiss.

Potter stood there, and blinked so hard that Severus choked his laughter. Then Potter reached up, gripped Draco’s shoulders, and maneuvered him slowly backwards, away from him. He didn’t wipe his mouth, but he looked as though he wasn’t far from it. He stared at Draco, then at Severus.

“And how do you feel about it?” he asked. His voice was so tense that there was no room for any other emotion in it, not even the hope that Severus had wanted to hear.

Wanted to hear.

And that was when he admitted to himself that this was happening, and that perhaps the pleasure he had felt when Potter had spoken of giving his power to Severus and when Draco had volunteered to set up a Potions shop with him was not entirely intellectual.

“I am—surprised, but willing to continue,” Severus said. He thought about taking the risk Draco had, about touching his mouth to Potter’s, and then strangled the impulse. He had taken enough initiative during his younger days, and almost every decision he had made had been wrong. For once, if someone wanted him, let them come and court him. Potter would kiss him first. “I had not anticipated this.”

“I realized it the other day,” Potter said and licked lips that had already swollen, despite the gentleness of the kiss he and Draco had shared. “I didn’t know—I had no idea that you might ever feel the same.” He placed a hand in the middle of Draco’s chest, because Draco was straining to move closer to him again, and looked him in the eye. “Do you really think it could work, with three people?”

“Of course.” Draco said that as if Potter had asked the stupidest question in the world. “I’ve been with more people than that at once.”

Potter gave that little jerk of his head Severus had seen earlier when he first stepped into the same room. “And you really think it could work?” he asked, voice slipping and straining. “With us?”

“Who else would it work with?” Draco’s voice was soft and eager, and he slipped past Potter’s weakened guard and leaned against him, chest to chest, eyes shut, for a moment. Then he turned and reached out for Severus. Severus let himself be drawn closer, concentrating on the way Draco looked at him instead of his own uncertainty and panic. “We’ve all shared experiences that most of the wizarding world could only dream of. We’ve been together for years in the past, and we watched each other change. We belong with each other.”

Potter shook his head, but it was not a gesture of negation, at least if the stunned smile on his lips could be believed. “That sounds like it makes sense. I’m not sure it really does.”

“Then we’ll make it so,” Draco said, and turned and kissed Severus.

Shock captured him again, and Severus knew he did not make as good a showing as he wished during his first kiss in years. Draco did not seem to care. He pressed close against Severus as he had pressed against Potter, murmuring and sighing and moving his fingers slowly up and down Severus’s shoulders as though he wanted to learn the shape of the muscles and flesh under the robes.

Severus reached up at last and captured Draco’s clever hands, because he could not let this continue if he was to retain his dignity. “What made you like this?” he breathed against Draco’s mouth. “I can see why your rivalry with Potter might have transmuted into desire, and Potter has always been incomprehensible, but you cannot be blind to the faults of an alliance with me, Draco.”

Draco laughed merrily. It was a sound that Severus had not heard out of his throat since the war. “You don’t know your own attractions, sir,” he said, stepping back but giving Severus a look that made it seem as if he, or at least his hands, had lingered. “Does he?” he added, addressing Potter this time.

Potter shook his head, and the burning in his eyes was almost as good as the kiss that Severus wanted. “He doesn’t,” he said. “It’s hard to see your own intelligence and courage and pride and stubbornness and skill from the outside. Well, maybe not your skill,” he added after a moment of thought. “It seems as though you put too much of your pride into that, sometimes.”

“Courage?” Severus asked, the only word he could manage. The rest were sticking in his throat as though Potter’s admiration were glue to hold them there. Then he took a few deep breaths and the glue came unstuck. “You must be confusing me with someone else, someone who came from your House—”

“Hogwarts should only be important for the passion it can give us, instead of take away,” Potter said, and moved a step closer. “I was talking about the real bloody courage it takes to spy on someone like Voldemort, and continue working for Dumbledore even when you knew he was being a manipulative arse. And if you shared those memories of my mum with me because you thought you were dying, well, it still means something. You weren’t afraid of someone else seeing them. You knew that you wouldn’t appear at your best, and still you shared.”

“What memories?” Draco asked, alert as always for something he did not possess, looking back and forth between them.

Severus did not intend to gratify his curiosity at the moment. This was his and Potter’s time, and he was going to conquer or be conquered, but he would not let Potter’s words remain there, unchallenged, as if they were true. “You should be careful, Potter,” he said, voice low. “You’ll be forgiving me next.”

Potter shook his head. “I forgave you long ago. Do you think I could have stood up for you at the Death Eater trials if I didn’t?”

Severus sneered at him. “It does not require forgiveness to be noble, to give the salve to your conscience that you so often love to apply.”

Part of him was appalled at his behavior, and from the way Draco’s eyes widened, so was he. Did Severus want to lose this chance? Draco’s face clearly asked. Potter wanted them for reasons unknown, and Severus was trying to fuck it up?

But Severus knew what he was doing, at least as well as someone who had just had change launched into his life and watched that life crack up, down, and sideways could know. He was not easy to get along with. He was vicious, violent, and vengeful. True, he had been forced to subdue some of those traits for the past few years, because no one would have frequented his shop if he did not, but lovers were a different proposition altogether. They would know him for who he was or not know him at all.

He had made the mistake once of believing that he could hide what he did and what he honored from the person he loved. He would not do so again.

“I know that, you git,” Potter said, his voice sharpening with frustration. He moved forwards again, his hands twitching, and Severus wondered if Potter would touch him and what it would be like if he did. “I forgave you because I wanted to, all right? And because I knew after those memories how much you had gone through. You fought more to save me than I ever realized, and more to save the world.”

Those words made Draco choke a little, but they relaxed Severus. Yes, he could see Potter forgiving him for that reason, and at least it sounded real, unlike the illusions that he had allowed himself to cherish for too long. He nodded and said, “If that is the case, then I will grant you the privilege of trying to stay with me.”

Potter’s face lit up, and then he lunged forwards and gave Severus his kiss.

It was not the searching, passionate one Draco had given him. It was rough, enthusiastic but unskilled, and Severus was forced to wonder suddenly exactly how far Potter had got with all the women he had once dated. Potter’s arm curled around his neck and dragged him closer, and even the brush of his skin felt papery and unexpected. Severus kept his lips closed with an effort. This was, by several orders of magnitude, more than he had ever thought he would get from Potter, and such a gift should be rewarded.

But there was no reason to make it too easy for him. Severus stepped back, knowing his lips looked bruised, and nodded. “Acceptable,” he said. “But what else can you do besides kiss?”

Potter’s eyelashes trembled, and his gaze darted down to Severus’s groin for just a moment.

“I did not mean that,” Severus snapped, wishing he could roll his eyes without Potter taking it wrongly. Merlin, would they have to train the boy to have appropriate responses in public? He would have thought Potter would have mastered the art of that by now, since he had been the wizarding public’s favorite feast for so long, but it was possible that he had spent enough time hiding to avoid lessons in etiquette. “I was asking how good you are at living with another person?”

“I don’t know,” Potter said, and his voice sounded like himself again, his eyes fastened to Severus’s face as if he were seeking the answer to a Potions exam. “I haven’t done it since Hogwarts. I’m out of practice at dating, even.” He turned around and looked at Draco, as if he had suddenly realized he and Severus were leaving him out, and Severus stifled an unworthy jealous thought. He would have to grow used to sharing with someone if they were truly to pursue this mad arrangement. “But I’d like to learn,” Potter said. “For your sake. Both of you.” He craned his neck back at Severus and blinked, and it took Severus a moment to realize that Potter was waiting for him to say that was acceptable.

“I’m hard to please.” Draco had lifted his nose in the air and struck a pose that Severus would have found irritating, but he knew why Draco took it. He was trying to disguise his own uncertainty, his own insecurity. He folded his arms and gave Potter a slow look, like someone sizing up a winged horse.

Potter’s eyes turned sharp. “And so am I. I just hope we’re not hard to please on the same things, or we’ll never get along.”

“How is that different from our history so far?” Draco muttered, and Severus decided that he should intervene, or they might destroy this fragile connection between them before it had even started.

“We must decide what we are going to do,” he said. “We can hardly go on ordinary dates without someone noticing, and the wizarding world would go mad when they found out who you were dating.” He nodded to Potter.

Potter grimaced in resignation. “I know. I’ve usually resorted to glamours to disguise myself when I was on dates before, but I wouldn’t want to do that with you, not forever. Besides, my dating two men will be enough to get the Daily Prophet upset.”

“I think we should meet the challenge,” Draco said stubbornly. “Glory in it. You can’t make them leave you alone, so you might as well flaunt what you have in their faces and show them that no one else gets to have so much as a taste.” He was looking back and forth between Severus and Harry with an expression that Severus recognized, somewhat uneasily. Draco had always been unwilling to share his skills with others in his House; it was to be expected that he was possessive of his lovers, but Severus still hoped that it was not excessive.

“No, I can’t make them leave me alone,” Potter said. “But my private life is just that—private.”

“You’ve tried to make it that, and see the good it’s done you.” Draco gestured with one sweep of his arm. Severus would have chided him for trying to encompass too much, the way he had sometimes done in his Potions essays. There was nothing there for Draco to point at, too much that could not possibly shelter within his gesture. “We should be aggressive from the beginning. Make it clear that they can stare at us in envy or hatred or disgust, as long as they never do anything more than stare.”

Potter’s eyes narrowed. Severus thought about intervening again, and then decided not to. Perhaps one time had been necessary, but he could not always play the role of a parent to an erring child.

“You might think that you want the attention I get, Malf—Draco,” Potter said, his voice old and dusty. He looked down and rubbed at his chin, which was, Severus noted, beginning to sprout a fuzz of beard. “But you don’t, once you’re in the middle of it. It’s the attention of sharks, snatching at you, wanting to eat anything they can. No one really understands or envies you the way you’re imagining.”

Draco paused, perhaps impressed by the metaphor Potter had used, then shook his head and pressed on. “But I don’t want to hide forever,” he said. “And it sounds like you want to.”

Potter gave him a harsh glare, but he blinked a moment later. “Not forever,” he agreed. “But for the first time we eat together, I’d like it to be a private dinner, here in—” He paused and turned to Severus with an expression on his face that Severus didn’t understand. He looked as though he had lost something, but surely not even Potter could lose track of his own thoughts in the middle of the sentence.

“What do I call you?” Potter asked.

Severus spread his fingers and then placed them together in a motion that had served well to conceal his hesitancy in the past, while he struggled for the words to speak. He had been thinking of Potter by his surname even after the kiss, and he was almost sure that Potter would not long put up with that.

“By my first name,” he said, before he could spend time dithering. “That is what Draco calls me, after all. And do you believe we could become comfortable with each other if we were held at a distance by last names?”

“No,” Potter said. “But you and Draco have been—friends for a long time.” He had visibly tried to find some better word than “friends” for it, and could not. “I thought you might want me to wait before I used that name.” He ducked his head and flushed with desperate, nervous embarrassment, in a way that Severus did not want to admit was charming.

“And we’ll be more than friends soon,” Draco said, with a leer that should have been illegal. “I think you can use his first name.” He paused delicately, and Severus was not sure what he would say next, but in truth, he should have been able to predict it. “Harry.”

Potter glanced up, and though he did not make a sound, the sight of his eyes was as good as hearing a gasp of pleasure.

“Thanks,” he said. He grinned then. “I’ve been struggling to call you by your first name anyway, Draco. I’m glad to think that my effort won’t be wasted.”

He turned to Severus then, and visibly nerved himself as if about to teach a class full of descendants of Neville Longbottom. “Severus. What would you say to a dinner here in your private rooms?”

Severus felt a small shock through his body when Potter spoke his name. It took him a moment to identify it.

It was like hearing the toll of a bell, the long-awaited summons calling him home, at last.